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Swedish Company Trials Peer-to-Peer Cellphones
Dr_Barnowl writes "A company named TerraNet is going through a trial period for a p2p based mobile telephony system. Phones are used to route calls onto other phones, constructing mesh networks of 'up to 20km'. The BBC reports on the natural tendency of the big telecoms providers to want to squash this. I can see other problems though. The advantages in an environment with sparse cell coverage are obvious, but network effects mean that the number of connections in a heavily populated mesh grow exponentially. What happens to your battery life when your phone becomes a node? And while the company is optimistic that they have a viable technology model from IP licensing, the demand for devices supporting this is going to be proportional to the number of devices that it can connect you to."
Obviously the battery will be drained to zero in the blink of an eye, possibly dieing a violent, flaming death if enough energy was stored the moment you switched on the phone. Thankfully, your investigative question posed in TFS alerted their engineers to the problem so they can start working around this problem. Then again, maybe they were already aware of the problem and resorted to the wonderful method of self-regulating systems. The more cell phones burn up, the less dense the network will be. A beatiful design indeed.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
and yet, you use the internet..
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
" I would like to see a p2p wifi network, but not neccessarily on portable phones first, but instead on home computers"
You're late. It was called UUCP.
Need Mercedes parts ?
" I am so sick of everyone one being oh so concerned about identity theft"
No shit. I'd PAY somebody to be me.
Need Mercedes parts ?
We're talking about cell phones. You're out in public talking with 100 people around you and you're worried about privacy?!! If you want privacy wait until you get home.